This review was first published Jan. 4, 2026 in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Get out your murder boards, pushpins and red string because people who like suspense, true crime books and podcasts will love “This Side of Gone,” a debut mystery by Saundra Mitchell.
In this roller-coaster-ride of a novel, former police officer Vinnie Taylor finds herself pulled back into the world she swore she left behind in Indianapolis when a teenage girl in her new town vanishes.
Vinnie visits a local market in her new town of Wills Harbor, Md., and, after a rough interaction with a customer, the teenage cashier passes Vinnie a note that says, “Please help me. I think he killed Avery.” Thus begins the itch that, as a former cop, Vinnie can’t shake.
After 25 years as a police officer, Vinnie’s career went up in flames when she went undercover to expose a sex trafficking ring inside her own homicide department. Her so-called brothers in blue nearly killed her to keep her quiet so she couldn’t testify. Now she’s trying to live a quiet life in the sleepy coastal town of Wills Harbor.
Her peace does not last long. When Avery disappears and no one but her best friend Hannah seems to care, Vinnie can’t ignore it. She sees something of herself in Avery: smart, scrappy and from the wrong side of town. But as Vinnie digs into Avery’s life, she uncovers a world of risky online connections and secrets Avery hid from everyone. The deeper she gets, the more dangerous things become.
During the journey to find Avery, Vinnie is forced to face the darkest parts of her past and the ugly truths buried right in her new hometown. Mitchell, best known as a YA author, also includes moments of levity, like scenes Vinnie shares with a stray cat (who adopts her) named Goofus.
Sometimes this book needs a visual chart to connect the dots among townsfolk (that’s where the murder board comes in), and readers will thrill at the mental gymnastics it will take to figure out what happened to Avery Adair.
“This Side of Gone” covers some well-trodden cop-speak ground: criminals on the run, drugs, sex, and violent crimes. The most interesting facet is that Vinnie is not a go-fast-and-break-things kind of detective. Because of this, readers get to see the thought process of the behind-the-scenes work that takes place in Vinnie’s mind, and it’s riveting. Readers will want to follow every twist and turn to the end of the road.
Vinnie is one tough cookie, and her moxie is somehow fourth-wave feminist while also being the kind of crude, raw gall of a throwback movie star. Mitchell has written a complex, nuanced character, and it’s satisfying to see a bisexual, Black, female, ex-cop on the page, a place that is sometimes the only place some people encounter queer voices.
The book’s ending feels more like a beginning, and Mitchell’s book is indeed part of a new detective series, sure to spark conversation among book lovers. Yet the fact that Mitchell keeps readers on the hook, guessing who did it until the very end, speaks to her storytelling, which is gripping.
Mitchell smartly leaves just enough unresolved to make readers eager for Vinnie’s next case, but “This Side of Gone” still lands on a note that feels earned, not gimmicky. The final pages pull Vinnie’s personal and professional stakes into sharp focus, turning what could have been a standard missing girl mystery into the opening salvo of a series with a heroine who refuses to look away when it matters most.